


le chant des oiseaux

by ChopLogic



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: During Canon, Gen, Post-Canon, Vignettes, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 11:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7047391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChopLogic/pseuds/ChopLogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birdsong; or how everyone could benefit with the addition of wings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	le chant des oiseaux

Troopers in rows, plastoid armour clattering shoulder to shoulder as they rode in the transport. Clipped wings of a thousand different colours pinned back behind each faceless soldier. Brown, white, red, gold, and black feathers the only difference in their clone-like similarity. A pair of cream wings fluttered, still not used to the weight of armour that covered the base of his wings and prevented him from flying. That is if the clipped flight feathers didn't stop him first.

This was his first skirmish and FN-2187 was afraid.

The shuttle sets down, he can feel the ranks tense up, wings folding back as far as they can go, minimizing targets as they turned the safety on the blasters off. The shuttle door opens like a great maw and row after row of troopers hustle out, blasters up.

"GO GO GO," bellows Phasma, steely blue grey wings flaring slightly.

He wishes he could fly far and fly fast, never looking back. He wishes he could peel off his heavy plates and never wear them again. He wishes he was free.

He runs out of the shuttle into chaos.

 

\---

 

Poe came to slowly, dark room swimming. He shut his eyes again, the troopers had been rough with him, at least they had the courtesy not to damage his wings. Ren had no such qualms. There were raw holes in his feather, nothing to keep him from flying permanently, just enough to make it very difficult for a while, just a little bacta to prompt feather growth and he would be fine. He winced as cold bonds scraped the empty patches.

They were pinned behind him, sharp metal pushing against sleek brown-black feathers, one wrong move could break a handful of them and really do him in. He tried not to tense when he heard the door slide-squeak open as another trooper entered.

"Ren wants the prisoner," Poe's bonds lifted off and two pairs of gloved hands cuffed his wrists and wings, keeping him from running or flying off.

Not that he had anywhere to fly to; humans, even winged ones, don't really work in the vacuum of space.

The trooper that entered took him by the elbow and marched him out, Poe scrutinized their armour, noting the thick plate that covered the base of their wings, preventing them from stretching out for flight.

Shackled too, a prisoner of a different sort.

"Turn here," the trooper tugged them into an alcove, pushing their bodies out of sight. The trooper fumbled their helmet off to reveal the face if a boy, shining with sweat and wide dark eyes that pleaded.

Poe heard what the trooper said, but hadn't really understood. Leia with her regal white wings hung behind her had told him he would be alone, no backup, she would swear no affiliation when asked and Poe Dameron would die in a cell alone for the Resistance.

"Are you with the Resistance?"

"Wh-? No, I'm breaking you out can you fly a TIE fighter?"

And then there was a boy, younger then him with wild bright eyes in a shining dark skin and Stormtrooper whites and a desperate note to his voice.

And there was Poe Dameron, prepared to die for General Organa, given a second chance by a Stormtrooper who broke programming.

"We're gonna do this"

 

\---

 

"Finn? Yeah Finn, I like that!" FN grinned, no, Finn grinned. His wings fluffed behind him, he wiggled in his seat in an attempt to preen them back.

 

"I'm Poe, Poe Dameron," Poe shouted back, adrenaline making his voice shake just a little. His palms slid on the grip, squeezed tight. He was free, he was well and truly free and so was Finn, brave Finn who had broken through a lifetime of propaganda to do the right thing.

"Good to meet you Poe,"

"Good to meet you too Finn,"

 

\---

 

And like that the TIE was gone. Swallowed by the sand.

All that was left of the man that named Finn and helped him escape the First Order ranks was a jacket.

Survival training had taught him not to waste fluids in desert conditions, crying included.

Stormtroopers didn't cry with their helmets off anyways.

 

\---

 

The heat of Jakku sands nearly cooks his wings when Finn falls with a _whump_ onto his back, jaw a bloom of pain where the girl with tiny gray wings (gray and smooth like stones that sloped down on her shoulders, too small for her body,) smucked him with her staff.

"What's your hurry, _thief_?" She spits, wings rustling in the memory of a threat display, now too shrunken to even unfurl.

"Thief?" Finn shoots back, bewildered with swimmy vision and clipped cream wings splayed inelegantly in the grimy sand.

"That jacket belonged to their master," the girl snarls. The jacket in question is currently on his shoulders, wings pushed through the long slits at the back. It smells like sweat and blood and something just a little too weak to be defined. It's the only surviving piece of Poe Dameron.

He spies the roly poly droid at her feet, his wings bristle as the voice of a dead man rings in his ears.

_BB unit, orange and white, one of a kind, and it's carrying the map to Luke Skywalker._

The mean little thing didn't even give a warning blat before flipping out a taser and scrambling Finn's thoughts with a shock.

This was shaping up to be a pretty messed up day.

 

\---

 

Kylo Ren stalks the bridge of the Finalizer, all heavy footfalls and swirling black fabric that drapes over his wings. Hux can't stand his dramatics, his own fire red wings tuck up behind him and bristle in warning when the temperamental Sith looms in.

Hux tries not to sniff dismissively, to flare his wings in anger. He would be the better man than the overgrown child that Snoke had set upon his ship.

"Careful Ren," he warns, trying to gain traction in their dispute. As always, Ren slips away with the last laugh like dark water at low tide. His cloak flares as he slinks away, flashing bright white wings stained with speckled gray.

 

\---

 

They run the old beast of a ship through a graveyard of old Empire star destroyers, making it up as they go and barely scraping out on the skin of their teeth. The ship groans and shudders as they breach atmo and turn the stars into smears as they enter lightspeed, nose of the junker pointed far far away from Jakku and the First Order.

Finn scrambles up from the cannon, barely pulling his wings in enough to make it up the narrow ladder shaft. He can hear the scavenger's boots thump on the floor above him as she runs from the cockpit to meet him.

Cream wings uncurl and fluff up as the two of then walk circles about each other, BB-8 off to the side and peering at the pair with a single camera eye. Her wings flutter a little, too weak and stunted to splay in joy.

Her name is Rey and her smile is just as brilliant as the black-green-blue shine of her underfeathers.

He feels like he can trust her. His lips part to speak.

Mouths and wings alike snap closed again when an alarm blares.

 

\---

 

Han Solo isn't anything like the holos Finn knew; Han Solo the Rebellion Commander had been a slimy rogue with a wolfish grin and an itchy blaster finger, Han Solo the old smuggler was just a tired old man relieved to have his ship back. His companion Chewbacca cocks his head, nothing Han's nervousness.

His pigeon grey wings shuffle against his jacket, Chewbacca rumbles a note in support. They stop, fluff, then flatten out as Han Solo straightens his back

"It's true, all of it,"

 

\---

 

Eyes in many colours and sets swivel to focus on the trio when they enter Maz Kanata's castle. A delayed greeting from Solo unfreezes the room; music plays on, banter and laughter picks up once more.

The little orange woman passes only a glance over Finn and Rey, eyes narrowing a fraction at the cream feathers that rise to either side of Finn's head and the two gray lumps that barely crest over Rey's shoulders. Finn's feathers fluff and settle again as he tries to look at anything but Maz ( _looking_ Solo, not staring). Rey's wings shuffle softly against her draped top as eyes fix on her, unaccustomed to the attention.

Maz sees the same eyes all the time, same wings however, only once in a lifetime.

 

\---

 

He hears fire and death, but on Takodana no one screams, no one cowers. Finn looks to the sky and sees ragged crimson lines like blood smeared on Stormtrooper whites, a billion lives, a billion billion, three planets snuffed out by a single order.

And then the TIEs descend, and a planet of green becomes a warzone.

It dawns on Finn that he left Rey, just like everyone else.

 

\---

 

Can't move, can barely breathe. Kylo Ren stalks up to her, his wings opening behind him to catch the breeze. White with grey like stains he couldn't wash out, like he tried to paint them black.

He reaches out with a gloved hand, and it feels like someone has slid into her head with her, two minds occupying too little space as his power curls around her and squeezes.

He steps behind her, just a breath away. Rey shudders when she feels the threat of a touch hover over her wings. They had always been small, sluggish lumps undersized for her body since all her calories went into scavenging rather then flying.

He thinks they're _shameful_ , he thinks they could be better, he knows how to make them better, she wants him out of her head.

A bark from a Stormtrooper and a growl from the Sith makes him retreat and she plunges into a dreamless sleep.

 

\---

 

In a day Finn has found two friends, two people that smile at him and call him buddy and begrudgingly hold his hand. A girl who could go anywhere but chose to stay and wait and a boy who lives in the sky and smiles like he has known you his entire life.

And he has lost them both.

Or so he thought.

On the tarmac he looks about, searching the crowd for the same pull he felt when the black Xwing swooped low overhead on Takodana. BB-8 zips past his shins, screaming binary.

Tracking the roly droid he sees it come to rest under the belly of an Xwing, the pilot easing sown out of the cockpit with dark wings out to slow his drop. There's raw holes in his feathers.

He knows those wings, there was once a man who had his mind scraped out who helped a Stormtrooper defect and his wings, sleek brown-black beautiful wings, were filled with holes.

"Poe!" Hollers Finn, and he runs with wings outstretched to half glide, half crash into Poe Dameron's arms.

 

\---

 

Finn stands in a room of tight-lipped Resistance fighters, wings tensing and fluttering with nervousness. His lay flat at parade rest. People notice.

"We disable the shields, kid you worked there, what'd ya got?" Han motions to him and a hundred eyes come to bear on him, tracking him. A trooper, an enemy, a turncoat. Finn swallows hard, steeling himself to gamble on a lie yet again.

"I can do it," 

"I like this guy," Han doesn't notice, no one does, the eyes Finn feels on his back don't move.

"I can disable the shields but I have to be there on the planet,"

He lets his wings splay a little, showing off their form, the delicate cream to tawny gradient, the clipped flight feathers of a Stormtrooper.

His jaw tenses, shoulders roll back, dares them to refuse his help.

"We'll get you there," Han Solo, Rebel Commander, grins like only a risk-taking smuggler can.

 

\---

 

Rey counts her blessings for her tiny wings as she slips out of the port she was hiding in. Her little grey wings flutter a little in the wind as she climbs up, almost as if she could open them and fly up.

If only...

She crushes the thought, shaking off Ren's criticism. 

She steps along quietly, listening for Stormtrooper boots or the crackle of a fizzling lightsaber, white knuckle grip on her stolen blaster.

Rey rounds a corner, pulling her blaster up into Finn's face. Wings splay in shock and Chewbacca trills. The blaster is quickly lowered.

"What are you doing here?"

"We came back for you,"

Chewbacca comments, Finn's feathers rustle. He wishes he knew what the wookie said without asking. He asks anyways.

"What'd he say?"

"That it was your idea"

She presses in close, it takes Finn a moment to hug back, and then his wings fold around them too. She smells of sweat and sand and metal, but Finn hold her close like anything less would let her slip away.

Of all the people to come back, Rey would've never guessed a Stormtrooper would be at the top of the list.

 

\---

 

Han Solo falls off his son's blade, pigeon grey wings for all their strength doing nothing to slow his drop.

 

\---

 

"Traitor!" Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, the son of the man he just killed, destroyer of planets, and Jedi killer, has the audacity to call him a traitor.

Finn's hands still on Rey's cheeks, the worry of the wet crunch he heard when she hit the tree quickly burns up with fury.

Cream wings flare in the dark wood, snow clinging to the feathers as he grasps the cold hilt of Rey's sabre and rises. He lights it, blue washing over his wings to turn them chrome.

Kylo Ren levels his spitting blade at him, snarling his claim. Speckled white wings like his mother's and father's splay behind the Sith, a true traitor.

"Come get it,"

 

\---

 

Rey's eyes crack at the sound of Finn's agony, she watches as he's disarmed and a burning stripe is painted between his wings.

She gets up.

 

\---

 

The chasm separates them. Kylo Ren with a bloody slash cut from his jaw into the skin of his cheek, wings sprawled out in the snow and breathing hard.

Rey stands with her sabre still lit, body singing with adrenaline. Her wings are open behind her, undersized and stiff, but they shine like speeder fuel set ablaze.

Her blood sings for Kylo Ren's head, her bones ache for the ruin he has wrought. It terrifies her how much she wishes she could fly over the gap and kill him herself.

She douses the sabre and runs.

 

\---

 

She stands on the rocky hill, breeze unfurling her wings and letting the oilslick black of her inner feathers catch the light. With a bit of practice she can move them now, the medics back on D'qar say there's still a chance they will grow to fit her and carry her aloft on the wind.

Luke can only stare

_There was once a man who lived in a red rock cave all alone, he was called Old Ben and his creaky old wings were bright like an oilslick and gray as a pebble._

The old jedi says nothing, mouth firming to a pale line. He ran away, ran right out to the edge of the universe and then further still, but he couldn't outrun his life as a Skywalker and the astronomical weight that drags people with him like the gravity of a great sun.

He stretches his wings off his shoulders like a cloak catching the breeze, shining black with white tips. Same wings as those of a man once called Anakin.

 

\---

 

History never repeats, but sometimes it rhymes.


End file.
